


A Sea-Change

by stilitana



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Families of Choice, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gills, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mutation, Pre-Relationship, Sick Character, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 07:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13266900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilitana/pseuds/stilitana
Summary: After an encounter with some irradiated water in an abandoned laboratory, the Sole Survivor begins to notice some strange symptoms. Could it be nothing more than the usual aches and pains of wandering the Commonwealth, or might she be in for something more peculiar? Luckily for her she has good friends to see her through it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoy my first Fallout fic. The Sole Survivor in this story is named Noemi Mancini, but the companions call her Nim. The idea behind this story comes from me taking the Aquagirl perk and thinking about how cool it would be if it and other perks like Ghoulish affected how your character looks. Given how the science in the Fallout franchise is based in science-fiction and a fanciful fifties understanding of nuclear technology, I could see something like this happening in the game.  
> I do not own Fallout and am not profiting from this story.  
> This story is mostly focused on general friendships, but there is some light developing/implied Hancock/SS.
> 
>  
> 
> "Full fathom five thy father lies;  
> Of his bones are coral made;  
> Those are pearls that were his eyes:  
> Nothing of him that doth fade  
> But doth suffer a sea-change  
> Into something rich and strange.  
> Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell  
> Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.”
> 
> — William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I, Sc. II

The trouble with getting sick in the wastes was the impossibility of distinguishing between the inevitable wear and tear of daily beatings and the symptoms of an illness which might be more serious. And by the time you figured out you had caught something, it would more than likely be too late—no one’s immune system was particularly robust anymore, to put it mildly, and if an illness had progressed to the point of being undeniable, it might be in such a late stage as to be untreatable with the limited medical attention the Commonwealth had to offer.

At first Nim didn’t think anything of it. On the second week of still feeling under the weather, she started taking notice. Were the headaches and sore throat the start of something serious, or the punishment for having hit the jet and mentats a bit too heavily over the last few days? Was she waking up in a cold sweat, her heart beating fast, because she had a virus, or were there unremembered nightmares jostling her awake? Were the sweating palms and irritable nerves a sign that something was going wrong inside her, or that something already had, an inevitable symptom of all the built up trauma?

In any case, she was glad to be back from the scouting mission she and Piper had just returned to Sanctuary from. The other woman was observant—and nosy—enough to notice something was off, but so far had held off from pestering Nim, opting instead to cast her glances from the corners of her narrowed-eyes, keeping a shrewd watch on her. 

As they went over the bridge Piper finally spoke her mind. “Nim, you’d tell me if something was up, wouldn’t you?”

Nim’s voice was higher than she’d meant it to be when she said, “Of course I would!”

Piper raised a brow as Nim cleared her throat. It was scratchy and tight, achy in a way she’d never quite felt but which reminded her of having strep. Of course, she’d been able to go get a prescription which cleared it up in a week back then. Now it could be nothing or it could kill her in her sleep. She shoved that thought down deep—such avoidance was necessary, she’d found, if you wanted to stay sane.

Piper was held off from further questioning by Hancock, who strolled toward them with his hands in his pockets, a grin tugging at his mouth. The act wasn’t fooling anyone; he clearly had to put an effort into keeping his pace slow, his legs itching to speed up. He shouldered his way between the two girls and flung his arms around their shoulders. Nim laughed as Piper rolled her eyes.

“Miss me, ladies?” he said, his grin so wide you could hear it in his voice.

“I don’t know, Johnny boy, not as bad as you missed us,” said Piper, smirking.

“Well, no offense to our fellow settlers, but it can get a little dull around here, trying to get up to trouble all on my lonesome, while you’re out there having all the fun. Well, maybe not all the fun. Always a good time teaching our fine citizens some Goodneighbor traditions.”

“Oh, great. Let me guess, you’ve started running a bar out of a garage? Peddling chems? You’ve got Curie all dolled up and singing the blues?” asked Piper.

“No, but there’s still time. I’ve just started training some promising new card sharps is all. We’ve got a weekly poker night, you ladies should swing by, it’s tomorrow.”

 

“Oh, how fun,” said Nim. “I miss cards.”

“Only if you’re both ready to lose all your caps,” said Piper, giving a sharp grin.

“Too late, already lost them all to Codsworth,” Hancock said. “Nim, you should’ve mentioned your Mr. Handy started out life as a casino bot.”

Nim laughed. “Oh, I know, isn’t he fantastic? Learned everything I know about cards from him.”

Hancock groaned. “Guess you’ll be next up to empty my pockets, then, huh? Nah, I’m kidding though—we’ve been using scrap. Figured I wouldn’t train anybody with real stakes on the table, didn’t seem fair. Only now I see I should’ve been looking out for myself.”

“That’s only because you’re an incorrigible risk-taker,” said Nick, who was leaning against the first building having a smoke and smiling at the three of them. “You go all in whether you’ve got a good hand or not.”

“What fun is it otherwise!” Hancock said.

Nick looked at him with fond exasperation. “You two have a good trip?”

“Yup,” said Nim, gently shrugging Hancock’s arm off. “I’m pretty tired, though. I think I’ll drop this stuff off, get some sleep. We can go through it in the evening, if that’s alright?”  
“Fine by me,” said Nick, watching her with a hint of concern. “You feeling alright?”

Nim nodded, rubbing at her neck. The ache in her throat was radiating outwards, making her skin feel sensitive as though it had been sunburnt. “Nothing a nap won’t fix.”

Nick gave her an understanding look. “You go get some rest, I’ll make sure anybody looking for you knows to wait until this evening.”

“Thanks, Nick,” said Nim, bumping her shoulder against him. “If it’s anything serious—”

“I’ll come get you if raiders are attacking,” he said, amusement glinting in his yellow eyes. “Otherwise, we can handle it until you’re rested up.”

“Yeah, just sic Paladin Dickwad on them, all that metal scares ‘em right off,” said Hancock, moving over to lean his weight against Nick, deftly plucking the cigarette from the synth’s fingers and taking a drag.

Piper groaned. “What’d he do this time?”

“Nothing we haven’t heard before,” said Nick, letting Hancock puff away at his smoke, perhaps in the hopes it would mollify whatever resentment he was harboring towards Danse. “Nothing serious, just what he’s been indoctrinated to think and say.”

“That’s no excuse,” said Piper.

“Danse is here?” asked Nim.

“He just passed through, looking for you,” said Nick.

“I may have told him you were shacking up with a super mutant in the commons, ran off to elope, not to check back in for a few months,” Hancock said, a thin trail of smoke wafting out of his mouth. He sounded his usual flippant self, but from the way he was fidgeting with his coat and looking at her from the corner of his eye she knew he was waiting to hear her reaction, thinking maybe she might be upset.

She grinned. “He should know better. I don’t need to hike all the way out to the commons to hook up with a mutant.”

Hancock snorted, and then gasped, tears budding up in his eyes as smoke came out of the hole where his nose had been. “Ouch,” he said, but he was laughing. “Only bad thing about missing your schnauze, smoking can burn like a motherfucker out of nowhere.”

“Only bad thing?” said Piper, raising a brow.

“Also makes it harder to do a line, but you figure it out, there are some things you can do with straws you just wouldn’t believe if I—”

“Where is Strong, by the way?” said Nim, as much innocence in her voice as she could muster.

Hancock cracked up while Piper laughed along, smacking her on the arm, and even Nick huffed a small laugh.

“Alright, alright, you go get some rest. You look dead on your feet,” said Nick.

Nim nodded and went to the house she shared with Piper and Curie. Living arrangements were loose in Sanctuary; in the earlier days, when they’d had less houses that didn’t leak or have full walls to keep out the wind, more people had shared their space. In the early days Nim had spent a lot of time alone, had slept on a bare mattress in Shaun’s room beside his old crib. Over time she had been immersed in the new rhythm of Sanctuary and one day she woke up and realized she wasn’t alone anymore, without really knowing how it had happened. Curie getting her synth body had helped; she’d needed Nim around to help her, to show her the nuances of her new life, to make her feel safe. Piper went back and forth to Diamond City to spend time with Nat, but when she stayed in Sanctuary she took to sharing the house with Nim and Curie.

Nim thought back on her ever-changing living arrangements, so different from the stability of the nuclear family she’d had before. She laughed under her breath. She supposed her family was an all new kind of nuclear now.

There’d been the bad times, when Cait was fresh off the chems and had stayed with her. They slept in the same room, even when Cait resented her, became sullen or silent or raged at her, and Nim didn’t mind, just held her when she could because she knew that later Cait would feel terrible, was lashing out from a deep chasm of hurt, would need her there to remind her she was loved and this was worth it. Through the worst of it they’d shared a bed.

When the ghoulified Valt-Tec representative came to Sanctuary, he’d stumbled through an awkward monologue she eventually worked out was a plea for help. She’d opened her door to him and for a month he’d slept in a bed pushed into the corner of the living room, with a lamp and nightstand constructed beside it so he could read through the night. He had the deep love of literature that Hancock joked was the trademark of a real ghoul.

“A dog might be man’s best friend,” he’d said, high as a kite and nodding lazily at Dogmeat, curled against both their feet, “but a book’s a ghoul’s. Especially the old-school ones, the 200 year old relics. Only people out here who’ll outlive us, who we won’t watch grow old and leave us behind. Only thing constant is a story.”

Just when she’d thought he was on the verge of something, of letting her a little further through the light-hearted jokes and deflections, he’d smirked and said, “And it doesn’t hurt they aren’t in it for a pretty face.”

The pre-war ghoul had struck up a friendship with Sturges and eventually moved into his house, started learning to craft resources and defenses for the settlement. He had a particular affinity for trades Sturges was more than happy to gain his help in, all the essential plumbing and electrical work that kept their settlement running. He said he liked to work with his hands, that it made him feel useful. Needed.

That was something she could understand.

Nim went into the bedroom she shared with Curie and laid down. Piper had her mattress set up across the hall, in the smaller guest bedroom. She liked to have a bit of privacy sometimes. They’d left Shaun’s room alone. She wasn’t sure what Piper had told Curie, but whatever it was was enough to quell her usually endless stream of questions. Nim had closed that door and it stayed closed.

It was early in the afternoon when she drifted into a troubled sleep. She woke up several times, trapped in a thin, feverish, dream-like daze wherein she wasn’t sure whether she was asleep or awake. She became tangled in her blanket as she grew hot and then cold, tried to toss it off and then bundle herself. She sweat through her clothes and ground her teeth together in a way she had not done since childhood. When she woke it was dark outside and her eyes were crusted together. Her throat felt swollen, her chest tight. Her head was bleary, and as she stumbled to her feet her heart was pounding, confusion heavy and filling her head with smoke. She was alone in the house. 

She wrapped a jacket around herself. Her skin was clammy and slick with cold sweat as she went out the door and stumbled across the street to where there was a loose ring of settlers around a fire, drinking from tin cans and eating whatever they’d scrounged up to roast over the flame. The smell of charred meat wafted over to her and made her want to retch. 

There weren’t many of them, which clued her in that it was late, much later than she’d meant to sleep. Most everyone must have already eaten and headed to bed. Mama Murphy was dozing in her chair. Valentine, Hancock, and Deacon, her three most persistent night owls, were sat on a long crate having a smoke, a couple of beers on the ground between Hancock and Deacon’s feet. Piper sat on the ground between Curie’s legs, tilting her head back so Curie could brush her hair, the synth seemingly mesmerized by how the dark locks ran through the brush. A box of sugar bombs was open at Piper’s side; as Nim watched she popped one into her mouth.

“Hey,” said Hancock, making grabby hands at Piper. “Share, would ya?”

She cracked open one eye to peer at him. “You’ve had half the box,” she groused, but passed it to him all the same.

“That sweet tooth is gonna get you into trouble one day,” Nick said, watching John tilt the box back and pour three sugar bombs into his open mouth before passing it to Deacon, who poured one into his hand and stared at it for a moment as though he’d never seen one before and then popped it into his mouth.

John grinned at Nick with his crooked teeth, then crunched down on the candies, making all of them wince.

“And you’ll ruin your teeth,” Nick admonished, watching him with a fascinated sort of concern.

John kept on grinning. “Already done,” he crooned, pressing his tongue against his front teeth so it was visible behind the gap between them, the pink shocking against the off-white enamel going yellow near his gums. “Teeth like a gravestone on an earthquake fault-line,” he said, as though reading it off a paper. “That’s what Fahrenheit always said.”

“She the only one who ever told you that?” Piper asked.

Hancock paused to think. “No. But you know what, that didn’t stop plenty of the ones who said it from—hey, Nim, you’re awake!” He scrambled up, swaying on his feet. He would have fallen were it not for Nick’s hand coming up to press at the small of his back. It was then she noted the canister of jet on the ground beside the beers, the way Deacon was putting a little more space between them than usual as though the high might be catching.

The rest of them looked over to her as Hancock swaggered over and pulled her to his side. She pressed one hand feebly to his chest to push him away. For a moment hurt flashed across his face before he gamely covered it with bravado.

“No,” she said, her voice a painful sounding croak. “I think I’m sick, I don’t want you catching it.”

Immediately he shifted gears and again pulled her against his side, and just in time; a spell of lightheadedness came over her and made her list sideways as she went weak at the knees.

“This isn’t how I pictured you swooning into my arms,” he said.

“Holy shit, Nim,” Piper said, getting to her feet. “You look terrible.”

“Oh no, what is the matter?” Curie said, nervous hands fluttering up and down. She was still getting used to them, to what was natural to do with them in any given situation.

“Just a cold?” Nim said, her eyelids drooping. “Don’t worry ‘bout me, honest, ‘s gonna be fine in the morning.”

“Let’s get her seated, John, before she falls,” Nick said, taking her other arm and guiding them inside, settling her on a couch. John sat down next to her, Curie on her other side, pressing the back of one cool hand against her clammy forehead.

“She is burning up,” Curie said, her nerves fading a bit as she took charge. “Piper, could you please get me my bag?”

Piper nodded and went to leave, but Nick stopped her. “Wait. I need you here—Deacon, could you get it?”

Deacon nodded and went out. 

Nick turned to Piper and Nim. “How long have you been sick?”

Nim shrugged. “Few days? A week? Two, maybe? Wasn’t this bad...still isn’t bad, don’t worry.”

“Piper?” Nick asked.

Piper seemed shaken. “I...I noticed something was off while we were out. But it was nothing like this. I figured maybe she had a cold, I thought she’d have told me if it was serious.”

“What symptoms are you experiencing? Tell me from the beginning, please, from the very first one,” Curie said.

Nim struggled to think through the fog in her mind. “Week ago, I was...was throwing up a couple times, while we were out.”

“You didn’t tell me that!” Piper said. “Why would you hide that?”

Nim shrugged. “Didn’t think it was important? It didn’t get worse, went away for a few days...then I was getting headaches, sore throat, sort of a...tightness, in my chest,” she said, pressing a hand to her sternum and wincing. “Feels...weird, in there. Like I can’t get a full breath. Then I was getting tired faster, and having dizzy spells, feeling confused…”

John was looking between Nick and Curie with desperation in his black eyes. “Rad poisoning? Doesn’t that sound like rad poisoning?”

“It is possible, but I would like to know more,” Curie said, taking her bag from Deacon when he returned. “Was there some...some incident, while you were away?”

“The lab,” Piper said, staring at Nim, her face pale. “I knew something happened in the lab, something you weren’t telling me.”

“What lab?” John asked. His fingers twitched towards the pocket where everyone knew he kept his mentats, then moved to fidget with the buttons on his jacket.

“I don’t know what they were studying, we didn’t bother looking through the terminals,” Piper said. “We just wanted the medical supplies they had lying around. There were a bunch, in the basement, but—but the basement was flooded, and the water, it was nasty. Totally irradiated, glowing green, the whole nine yards. It looked like a bunch of stuff had spilled from barrels, but who knows what they’d been storing there. We agreed it wasn’t worth it, wading through that to get to the first aid kits. But there was — we split, just for a few minutes, I went to check one side of the hall while she took the other, and then I had to pee, and then there was this pack of feral dogs, so—god, Nim, what did you do?”

Nim gave a weak, breathy laugh. “Rad poisoning, that’s not so bad. Just gimme some rad-away. I guzzled a bunch after I fell in there, but maybe it wasn’t enough. I know it wasn’t, because, my pip-boy—I thought it might be broken, because every six hours or so it’s saying I’m irradiated, even if I just had some, so I stopped taking it, ‘cause how can that be?”

“Well, shit, let’s fill a tub with it!” Hancock said. “Get her in there quick! Your pip-boy’s not broken, you’re so messed up you’re making your own radiation or something.”

“You worried I’ll go ghoulie on you? What, this town not big enough for the two of us?” Nim said, giggling.

Hancock groaned. “She’s delirious.”

“Focus, Nim. What happened with the basement?” Nick asked while Curie prepared an IV.

“I really wanted those supplies. The last time raiders attacked the settlement—I never want to be that low on supplies again. I thought I could reach, I found this broom, I duct-taped this metal hook I found to it, but I slipped into the water.”

“Of course you did!” Piper said, throwing her hands into the air. “You’re a klutz!”

“Yeah, well, I got the supplies,” Nim said.

“You mean you didn’t get out of there immediately? You stayed in there?” Piper said.

Nim nodded. “I...also might have drank some of it.”

“Why!” Piper exclaimed.

“Well, not on purpose, but it startled me, when I fell in, I took a huge swallow of it. I’m still tasting it,” she said, with a shudder.

“Mr. Valentine, will you help me get her to a bed?” said Curie. “I am going to give her rad-away intravenously—this will make it more potent, and immediate. Then we will do what rudimentary blood work I can do with what I have to see what we might find.”

“You’re all overreacting,” Nim said. “So it’s a little more rads than usual—occupational hazard, right? I’ll get over it.”

“Maybe,” said Curie, grimly. “But it is better to be safe than sorry. Something you may have recovered from before the bomb may be more serious now if we do not treat it. And there are so many unique conditions now that the human body is not accustomed to.”

Nim sighed. “Alright...but I don’t need you all wasting time fussing over me…”

“It’s not a waste of time,” Hancock growled. “Come on, let’s get you to bed so Doc Curie can patch you up.”

Between him and Nick they got her into a bed in the main building, though it was Nick supporting most of her weight. She fell asleep to the sound of Curie fussing with the IV, to someone dragging a chair across the room and the shifting of sheets. She felt a gentle pressure on the bed near her side as though someone had rested their head there, and then she was asleep, something heavy sliding into her blood through the needle allowing her a dreamless slumber.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun writing this and may write more Fallout fic, so let me know what you think. Criticism is always welcome as I am always looking to improve my writing.

When she woke the fog had cleared from her mind and the sun was sliding through the blinds; it was thin, fragile, early-morning sunlight, the color of white wine, and it painted the rumples in the sheets in broad swathes and fell across Hancock’s back. He was leaned over in an armchair, head resting on his arms which were folded on the bed beside her, his face cast in deep shadows by his hat which had slid forward in the night. He made soft sniffling and whistling sounds as he breathed through where his nose had been. Nim reached over to push the blanket down so it wasn’t pressing against the hole in his face, fearing for one irrational second that it might smother him.

The movement made him twitch and then blink awake. He stared blearily at her from beneath the brim of his hat as though not comprehending what he saw but did not move away as though the slightest motion might shatter the moment of calm. Then he sat up and stretched his arms over his head, cracking his back with a groan.

“Did you sleep like that all night?” she asked. “That can’t have been comfortable.”

He shrugged. “I’ve slept soundly in worse places. How’re you feeling?”

“Better,” she said. “But still weird.”

“Weird like how?”

She rubbed her neck, which was itchy to the point of being painful. He followed the motion and his eyes widened, something like fear stealing over his face. He stood and pushed her hand aside.

“Let me see,” he muttered, and then he stared at her skin, hesitantly pressed the tips of his fingers to it so lightly she barely felt it. Then he was leaving the room, calling for Curie.

Curie rushed in with Hancock at her heels.

“What is it? What is the problem?” she said.

“Look, look at her neck,” he said, pointing.

Curie went to Nim’s side and brushed aside her hair. She pursed her lips and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “It looks like some kind of rash...how strange.”

“You don’t think it’s—I mean, it couldn’t be, you got her rads way down, so—it just reminded me of, you know,” he said, fumbling.

Curie shook her head. “It is not ghoulification, at least it does not seem that way to me, but I have admittedly only begun my research on that topic recently. If you take a closer look perhaps you could confirm, now that you are not so startled by it?”

Hancock stepped closer and peered at Nim’s neck. After a moment he shook his head, his shoulders slumped. “No. No, it’s not really like that at all.”

“It itches like you wouldn’t believe,” said Nim. “So, what, I’ve got nuclear shingles?”

“I do not believe so,” said Curie, her tone contemplative.

“Well, whatever it is, I don’t feel nearly as sick as I did last night,” said Nim.

It took all her powers of persuasion, but she eventually convinced Curie she’d be alright to go tend the garden out back under the conditions that she not strain herself, that she come back inside and let Curie know if she began to feel sick again, and that someone be with her at all times. Hancock volunteered for the job. 

They went out back to the small garden of melons and corn, carrots and mutfruit. Hancock popped a couple mentats into his mouth.

“Think you need to be a little more clever to pick some weeds?” Nim said, raising a brow.

He just grinned. “Breakfast of champions,” he said, his voice garbled by the drugs dissolving in his mouth.

They worked slowly, chatting as they tended to the plants, passing a water back and forth between them. Of all the new members of her patchwork Sanctuary family, it was somehow Hancock to whom she felt especially close. Of course, she was close to all of them in different ways; helping Cait get clean and Curie adapt to her new body built a strong trust between them, while Piper was almost like a sister and Nick Valentine perhaps knew her best, new the most about what happened with Shaun and knew without her needing to say a word what she was feeling. Nick was her rock. But Hancock was a friend. An easy friend she could be silly with, who didn’t idolize her or expect a saint-like strength and wisdom from as some of the new settlers did when she rescued them from raiders or their own personal demons. Neither of them was one to put on airs. The fact that they were both troubled, and perhaps not always coping with it in the most healthy of ways, existed in the background, helped them build a mutual understanding, but did not loom heavily over them and keep them from joking and laughing. 

She admired Nick for his patience and empathy, Piper her courage and tenacity, Cait’s resilience and vigor, Curie’s curiosity and optimism, Preston’s loyalty and good-heartedness, Deacon’s odd humor and dedication, MacCready’s determination and resourcefulness. She loved them all. But Hancock had something special that was in very short supply in the wastes, something simple—he was, at heart, fun-loving and affectionate. They both needed people, needed relationships and contact, in a different, desperate sort of way. Luckily they’d found a family.

She took a pass on poker that night, starting to feel tired and strange again. She waved off everyone’s concern, though Curie still insisted on joining her in turning in early. 

When she woke in the early hours of the morning it was to a terrible sensation in her neck and chest and the knowledge that something was very wrong, something was not as it had been when she had fallen asleep. She staggered to her feet and into the bathroom where by the light of a lantern she saw the slits on her neck and gave a strangled gasp, which caused them to flare and make a gross, rasping suction nose. This woke Curie, who rushed into the room and stopped cold.

“Oh my,” she said. “How strange.”

“Please tell me you know what’s happening to me.”

“Let me see,” Curie said, not bothering to hide her fascination as she stepped forward and brushed Nim’s hair aside. “They are like lacerations, but...no, only in appearance. The skin, it is different here, there is a bit of bleeding but...they are not just surface cuts, they go deeper, if they were wounds there should be much more blood and pain, your breathing would be impaired.”

“My breathing does feel weird,” Nim said, light-headed and taking deep breaths that failed to fully satisfy her, as though her lungs refused to inflate all the way. “If they’re not wounds, what are they?”

It was then that Piper staggered into the doorway her hair disheveled and squinty-eyed. “What’s going on?”

Curie lifted Nim’s left hand by the wrist, and the light of the lantern shone on the thin, delicate web of skin suspended between her fingers, stretching midway to the second knuckle. 

“It seems you are mutating,” Curie said, her voice quiet and breathy with wonder. “How fascinating.”

“Oh,” said Nim, feeling faint as she swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Well. If that’s all.”

“Holy shit,” said Piper. “I’ll get Nick.”

Ten minutes later and the three girls plus Hancock and Nick were seated on the mismatched living room furniture arranged around the table, Nim on the couch beside Curie while Piper went from sitting on her bed, the curtain drawn aside, and pacing up and down. Nick sat in the armchair while Hancock perched backwards on the folding chair, arms resting on its back. The sun was just beginning to rise, staining the sky a soft pink outside. All else was quiet in the settlement. Soon there would come the faint rummaging of Sturges readying the fire for coffee for any early-birds up before breakfast, but not yet.

“Hope you don’t mind John coming along,” Piper said. “He insisted.”

“You woke me up!” Hancock said. “You can’t go barging into somebody’s house and not expect them to wanna know what’s up.”

They were a comical sight, Nim and Piper in ill-fitting casual clothes, Curie in an ankle-length gown trimmed in lace she’d been ecstatic to find, Hancock in a loose t-shirt, socks, and purple boxer shorts but still wearing his hat and draped in his red coat. Nick was dressed exactly as he always was, which somehow made it that much funnier.

“You’ve got me there,” said Piper. “But just so you know, I’m disappointed in your modesty. I mean, I’m grateful to not be seeing a lot more of you than I ever want to, but now I owe Cait twenty caps.”

“What?” said John.

“I pegged you for a naked sleeper. She said no way, but I’m like, come on, there’s got to be at least one in the settlement, and my caps were on you.”

Hancock laughed, but Nim noticed the telltale hunching of his shoulders, how he was suddenly self-conscious, tugging his coat around to cover more of his legs. “Sorry to disappoint, but being caught with your pants down by raiders once is too many times.”

“You placed bets on that? Seriously?” said Nim.

“Yeah. Her money’s on Preston.”

Hancock and Nim both guffawed as Nick gave them all a long-suffering look. 

“Piper, you seemed in an awful hurry when you brought us over here, could someone tell me what’s going on?” Nick asked.

“Take a look,” said Curie, holding aside Nim’s hair and lifting her hand for them to see.

John leaned so far forward the chair rose up on two legs, his usually squinty-eyed black gaze widening to comically large circles. “Ho-ly shit, would you look at  _ that _ . What  _ is _ that?”

“I will need to run some more tests to see what we can learn from her DNA, but it would appear that she is—”

“Part Mirelurk,” said John, a gleeful, wicked smile spreading across his face. “Oh, this is too good. Have you tried them yet?”

“Not yet,” said Nim, starting to smile herself. “But I’m dying to.”

“Tried what?” said Piper.

“Her freakin’ gills!” said John.

“Well hold on, before you go jumping into more irradiated water, don’t you think we ought to learn a little more about this?” said Nick.

Curie nodded. “It is true, we do not know if this is only a superficial, cosmetic change, or if they are indeed a new, functional organ. In addition, we cannot be sure if the mutation has run its course or if there will be further changes. There may be consequences, more negative symptoms we are not yet aware of.”

John seemed to sober up a bit at that. “You’re saying she might get sicker?”

Curie shrugged. “It is possible. This kind of extensive mutation, it is uncommon, I have very little data to go off of, but it seems unlikely it would not be accompanied by any other side effects.”

“Plus, you should think about how public you want to make this,” said Piper. “I know none of us is a big fan of the Brotherhood, but if you want to keep getting their occasional help, Nim, you gotta consider how they’d react.”  
“You mean you think they’ll start treating her like a mutant?” said Hancock.

“I mean she literally is a mutant, who knows how they’ll react? I hardly think it makes you another species or something, but we all know how those guys are.”

“I’ll wear a scarf around Danse, no big deal,” said Nim. 

Nick sighed. “How do you feel?” 

“Like I’m ready for a swim,” said Nim.

John got up and ran over to rummage through the kitchen cabinets. He returned with a huge pot, the kind Nim once would have used to boil water for pasta, and ran out the door. They heard the water pump turning on outside and then he came back, lugging the pot, sloshing water on the floor. He slapped the pot onto the kitchen table and spread his arms to gesture at it, beaming.

Nim stood and stared down into the water.

“Well, I guess it can’t hurt,” Nick said.

She looked at Piper, who quirked a brow, then Curie, who shrugged. John gave her a double thumbs up. She gave him a goofy grin and then plunged her head into the water. She took a deep gulp of water and then resurfaced coughing.

Hancock patted her on the back. “Ok, ok, not with your lungs.”

“It is very possible they are not functional. Please, do not hurt yourself,” said Curie.

“I’m good,” said Nim. “I’ll try again.”

She dunked her head into the water, and this time concentrated on the new sensations in her throat, on the aching, fluttering feeling. Nim breathed.

It hurt. It hurt so much she reflexively gasped and again jerked her head out of the water, trembling. Piper helped to ease her back onto the couch while Hancock sat beside her and rubbed her back.

“Now look what you made her do,” Piper said.

“Sorry, Nim,” said Hancock. 

Nim laughed. She grabbed his coat and beamed, her face flushed. “Sorry? What for? It worked! I can breathe _underwater_!”  
Hancock’s face broke into a grin. “No shit?”

“Well I’ll be,” murmured Nick. “That’s amazing.”

“It really hurts though,” Nim said, coughing and holding her throat.

“The mutation may not be finished manifesting, or else the gills are not fully functional,” Curie said. “Please be careful, until we know more maybe you should not try that again.”

“So worth it,” Nim said.

Things went downhill over the next few days. She took to spending time alone, assuring Curie she felt fine, evading Piper and Hancock’s invitations to spend time together or go scouting. She spent the time with Dogmeat, in her room, behind houses, under the bridge. She was changing and didn’t want them to worry. If this was going to be what killed her, there was little anyone could do about it, and she’d rather they didn’t have to watch. She made sure she had a supply of rad-away which she sipped when she felt the nausea coming on. It wasn’t always enough to keep her from vomiting, but it helped. 

The extra skin between her fingers now stretched nearly to her third knuckle. It was thicker near the base of her hand, thin at the ends, with spidery veins visible when she held her hands up to a light. The gills—she was still getting used to thinking of them as that, but it was now undeniably what they were—had grown more distinct, three slits on either side of her throat. When she pulled them open as far as she could, which was not far as they were sensitive to the touch, the flesh inside was a deep red that reminded her of cranberry sauce, and was ribbed like the underside of a mushroom’s cap.

The extra eyelids came last. She spent an evening lying in bed thinking she was surely going blind and that would be that, she’d need to find a way to hook up a synth’s optics to her brain because her vision was foggy. When she woke her vision were clear but there was a transparent lid beneath her normal ones.

She thought that might mark the end of her transformation, though there was no way to be sure save for a gut feeling. That morning she went alone to sit beneath the bridge with her knees tucked up to her chest, staring at the shallow stream of irradiated water, at the bloodleaves floating listlessly on its surface and the trash flowing by. 

Not much time went by before she heard the crunch of boots and then there was Hancock standing over her and blocking out the sun, his shadow falling across her, munching on a pack of gumdrops which he held out to her. She opened her palm and he shook a couple into it. She sucked the sugar off the candies and then chewed while he sat beside her and looked at the water.

“You’re looking a little fishier than the last time I saw you,” he said.

“Thanks for noticing.”

“You know,” he said, still looking at the water, “even if it comes with some perks, it can be a little scary, watching your body change right in front of you. You might even get a little upset, start thinking you don’t recognize yourself anymore, start wondering if other people will. You might feel out of control. It’s no fun, feeling…”

“Helpless.”

“Yeah. But here’s the deal—you’re still you, whether you like it or not,” he said, a sardonic edge to his smile. “You know what helps?”

“What?” she asked, turning to look at his face, at the blunt, anonymous profile he struck. 

“Owning it.” He stood and kicked off his boots.

“What’re you doing?”

He stretched his hands above his head, then slid out of his coat, folded it into a neat square and tossed it higher up the bank. “It’s a beautiful day. I’m feeling like soaking up some rads, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Perfect day for a swim. What do you say?” He offered her his hand.

She looked up at him and couldn’t help the soft smile that spread over her face as she took his hand and let him help pull her to her feet. She kicked off her shoes and in nothing but her vault suit she waded with him into the stream.

Hancock sighed. “That hits the spot.”

“What’s it like?”

“Like holding your hands close to a fire on a real cold night.”

Nim stared at the water with an equal mixture of trepidation and longing.

“You’re lookin’ at that river the way Piper looks at a juicy piece of gossip.”

“They’ve gotten really dried out,” she said, rubbing the skin around her gills. “It’s itchy.”

“Better dive in then, sister.”

So she did. Nim stepped into the center of the river, where it ran deepest, and slipped beneath its surface. She breathed as naturally down in the blue water as she had up above all her life, let all the air out of her lungs so that she sank cross-legged to the silty river bed and let the water run through her gills, relieving the achy tenderness in her throat, the tension flowing out of her body, flowing away downstream. She let it all go. She breathed and then she began to laugh, happiness blooming warm in her chest, bubbles trailing from her lips before they too were carried away.


End file.
